May I ask a Halloween question of some christian (C of E) mumsnetters please?

[ScaryHalloweenSquonkRAAR]

Dd2's school is not allowed to have a Halloween disco because it is a C of E school and tis against the tenet of the church.

Why?

I don't mean to be confrontational or start a MN bunfight, but as a non-believer, I would have thought that the whole Halloween thing would go hand in hand with there being an almighty force for good to counteract the nasty hobgoblins and the like that come out to frighten us on 31st October.

What obvious thing am I missing?

halloween kind of celebrates bad spirits...

I think it's because Christians believe witches and all that stuff are real, so it's probably not a good idea to teach small children that pretending to be a witch is fun. Or something.

do you think it celebrates bad spirits?

I always thought that we sort of banished them on Halloween for another year

aaah, beansmum... I suppose I didn't think about it like that

Christians believe in the supernatural and anything that is not direct from God is from Satan, so witchcraft, faith healing, reiki etc is all from Godly sources and therefore not be celebrated.

My children went to a C of E Primary School, and they held a huge fundraising Halloween party every year.

The children were told about the history of Halloween alongside the relevance of All Souls Day.

eek that should be NOT from Godly sources!

that's what I was thinking would happen, HC, that they would be taught about the relevance of halloween in a christian environment.

Not to celebrate it, but to use the occasion as a learning experience, and maybe for them to have some fun as well.

okay, thanks for all your input, I am now slightly wiser than I was before

CG - I mentally inserted a NOT

The school is not being particularly creative. There are ways to harness the 31st October to put on events that are a force for good.

To celebrate witches, etc. is wrong, though.

But the school doesn't know its scripture -

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:39-39

you can have a different kind of event

our church - CofE - does a really fun event for children on Hallowe'en so that they have just as much fun as they would have done trick or treating. It is deliberately NOT hallowe'en themed even though it is deliberately held on Hallowe'en - it's meant to be an alternative

Parents like it because it means not having to tramp around trick or treating; which is a dubious activity anyway, depending on how warped the kids are who are doing the tricks

so I can't see why you couldn't have a disco, as long as it wasn't Hallowe'en themed - so no dressing up, no pumpkin lanterns etc.

I'm not too bothered about Hallowe'en personally (don't hand out improving tracts to local trick or treaters etc) but I do think its tawdry aspect means that All Souls' Day, as a profoundly moving day of remembering the dead, and thinking about our mortality, is trivialised.

Except that it's only for fun and no sensible person thinks that it's real so their attitude is a bit silly.

Do christian schools object to Santa and the tooth fairy? to be consistent they ought to.

capp - we talked about having a fancy dress disco, just general fancy dress and letting them come as fairies and pirates and cats.

But it was decided that a lot of them would come as witches and little devils and that was bad.

Doing something entirely different on halloween is a good idea, I shall suggest that for next year.

We hand out tracts to trick or treaters alongside the fun size Milky Way.

ps the day that follows Hallowe'en is All Saints' Day - the day after is All Souls' Day.

But I am from the liberal Anglo-Cath wing of the Church so am naturally drawn to sitting soberly by candlelight and chanting plainsong. I actually spend Halloween lobbing chocolate eyeballs at the neighbours' children.
I wish our church did something similar Capp but as we only have eight children in Sunday school and two of them are ours I can see where that is heading.

Why can't they have an all saints day disco, or a bonfire night disco????

I think the biggest misconception is that in general people think Halloween is all harmless and therefore witchcraft is harmless etc etc Some of the traditions of Halloween have some horrid roots.

Gosh, we have over 200 children in our church, Marina. And it's CofE. Closer to 300 if you include uniform groups, preschool and toddler group.

We have an official church bonfire party, Cargirl, and it is great.

We alway have a light & laughter party on the 31st Oct and it is very popular, fortunately I do not get involved in helping with these things!

You are very lucky then SqueakyPop. Our parish is a small one with a mostly retired congregation. There are churches near us with that kind of Agreed Attendance, but this is our parish church so that is where we go. Small in number, great in fellowship.

I am a Catholic and our previous priest asked us to call the Halloween party the 'saints and angels' party because of the pagan conotations. However, our current priest doesn't care and it is back to being the Halloween party.
It is All Hallows Eve and the next day is a Holy day of obligation, in Scotland anyway. Most of our Christian traditions have grown out of pagan ones anyway.

What is 'Agreed Attendance' - I haven't heard that term before.

It is the figure used by the Diocese to calculate your Quota for giving.
Based on an audit of people in pews on stipulated Sundays throughout the year.
Is separate from your Electoral Roll.

Message withdrawn